


Worth melting for

by Ibbyliv



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Everyone kisses everyone, First Kiss, Fluff, Frozen references, Hella Frozen references, M/M, New Year's Eve, New Years kiss, Pining Enjolras, no seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 22:59:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1112513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ibbyliv/pseuds/Ibbyliv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What are your New Year's resolutions? Or... wait, you mustn't share those, right?”</p><p>“It’s wishes that you don’t share,” tuts Grantaire. “You <em>can</em> share resolutions. What do they even teach you at posh elementary schools?”</p><p>“Geometry and tennis, I guess,” Enjolras shrugs his shoulders. “I always sucked at both. Anyway. I bet they’ll all be painfully ironic. Like <em>Get up from your sofa more, move your laptop to your bed?</em> Or <em>Take up a new habit, start smoking weed?</em>”</p><p>“Precisely,” nods Grantaire with a little hum. “<em>Be confident in the skin you live in! Wear that and nothing else</em> and <em>Do less laundry and more deodorant.</em> Also find an art style that’s not so fucking pretentious. Oh,” an inexplicable smile appears on his face without quite reaching his blue eyes and he adds, ever so casually as if he's discussing nothing more important than the weather. “And, you know, stop drinking.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth melting for

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to my story 'Sleep in heavenly peace' because it's festive and everyone sleeps, I guess. I know that in the last chapter of my Love Actually AU there is a very similar countdown but I can't help myself and write another, I just LOVE COUNTDOWN KISSES <3  
> The Frozen references were inevitable. Simply inevitable. I didn't do it on purpose. My hand slipped. My mind vomited. Blame it on the alcohol I didn't have and the chocolate I pretty much did. CONCEAL DON'T FEEL DON'T LET THEM KNOOOOW WELL KNOW THEY KNOWWWWWWWWWW  
> HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR MY LOVELIES I LOVE YOU SO SO MUCH AND E/R FF CHANGED MY LIFE THIS YEAR AND YOU CHANGED MY LIFE THIS YEAR, I really can't begin to say what you all mean to me, you're like a second family and gah ILU HAVE A WONDERFUL NEW YEAR i don't have a skull i don't have bones lalala ilu <3

Christmas never particularly touched Enjolras, either in a spiritual or, of course, in a commercial way. The most peculiar of things, however, was the fact that post-Christmas heaviness did actually affect him, not in a melancholic manner, like it so obviously did to Jehan and Courfeyrac, who desperately struggled to extend the festive period with the ugliest Christmas sweaters possible and particularly loud demonstrations about reindeers’ rights against discrimination. No, the way Enjolras reacted in the days following Christmas was more of a post bah-humbug heaviness. In general he did not celebrate Christmas but he never minded his friends getting overly enthusiastic about it, sometimes he even enjoyed their enthusiasm and let them tag him along. After Christmas was over, though, he absolutely couldn’t stand the now rotten and worn sound of carols in the streets, or the nostalgia of the still lingering decorations, now seeming out of place. That, together with the numerous tasks and assignments that he still had to accomplish, prevented him from the eagerness to enjoy the celebrations of New Year’s Eve, this year held in Cosette’s (and now Marius’ too) place.

This year he’s more than grateful for the fact that Combeferre decided to occupy himself with aggressively yet ever so composedly eyeing a certain member of their group behind his eggnog so that he didn’t bother with glaring at him occasionally, and Enjolras receives that as encouragement to keep his notes on his lap and throw sneaky glances on them every now and then so that he won’t feel entirely too unproductive. All his friends are already there and that’s enough for him to feel almost contented even when Courfeyrac threatens to tackle him down and kiss him to oblivion on midnight if he doesn’t get up and have some fun. “And I know that few people in his world –maybe only Cosette’s dad but never say never- can resist my mesmerizing charms and since you won’t make up your mind and finally pull your shit together….”

Sometimes Enjolras reconsiders his choices in friends but Courfeyrac is really amazing even though he can’t always understand him and of course Courfeyrac pulls him into a drunken kiss anyway but it’s okay because he’s Courfeyrac and even worse a drunk Courfeyrac so he’s already been used to such outbursts after so many years of valuable friendship, and he even smiles against it because it’s warm and promiscuous and radiates cheer –plus Courfeyrac thinks he’s such a good kisser, not that Enjolras has any experience to the matter or that he’d try to prove him wrong even if he had- but still something seems to be missing. And just when he’s raising his eyes to observe his friends drinking and laughing and dancing, something unknown jumps inside him, because Grantaire certainly wasn’t here before but now he is and for goodness’ sake, he’s already started drinking!

Something’s strange about him (but then again, isn’t Grantaire _always_ confusing?) Maybe it is the fact that he hasn’t yet shaved (what has it been? A _month_ or so? Not that Grantaire’s beard is any of Enjolras’ concern) or the fact that he’s wearing a turtleneck and Enjolras doesn’t know which thought to be made for a friend (or not even quite a friend, Enjolras isn’t sure) is the most disturbing: that the high green woolen neck quite suits him or that he realizes he hasn’t ever paid attention to Grantaire’s neck.

Um. Yeah. Okay. It’s really really strange but he actually hasn’t and he could be making the same thought for everyone else in the group. Jehan’s neck for instance. It’s wrapped in that enormous purple Fair Isle scarf and he’s wearing reindeer horns on his head (from which now hang two and not one ginger plaits) and Grantaire takes the poet’s tiny waist in his hands and swirls him around the room singing “Reindeers are better than people” but really? What does that even mean? Isn’t their cause addressed to the people? But Grantaire’s singing voice is actually pleasant in Enjolras’ ear while asking “Jehan, do you think that’s true?” and Jehan chuckles almost naughtily before burying his face in Grantaire’s wool cladded neck and replying what sounds like “But people smell better than reindeers” which makes Enjolras wonder how Grantaire’s neck is exactly smelling and this is a really add thought which leads him to the conclusion that Jean Prouvaire is, in fact, a sneaky little bastard, especially considering the way that Courfeyrac is burying his head in his own lap, muffling the most frustrated, incoherent whimpers. Enjolras settles for absently patting Courfeyrac’s head before returning to his notes. Eponine, Bahorel and their numerous piercings are currently rocking the dance floor with some swing number, apparently not for long because Combeferre ever so formally interrupts them but unfortunately fate renders him dancing with Bahorel while Eponine starts swaying with Feuilly –who _also_ happens to be an excellent dancer, seriously is there any flaw that Feuilly possesses?

Enjolras gets distracted for a while, watching Joly, Cosette and Musichetta playing a drinking game about the times that Marius will choke on his own drink or Bossuet will stumble and fall straight in the roast beef plate, until he eventually lands in the chocolate fountain and Enjolras decides to look away. It’s just then that he feels someone sinking in the couch next to him and the first word that comes to his mind is _nuisance_ which means of course that the second is _Grantaire._

He doesn’t really turn his head to face the man, he doesn’t know exactly what stops him from it, it’s not that he’s feeling annoyed, at least not yet, but something pins his eyes on the notes scattered on his knees. Courfeyrac has already fled after screeching something about alcohol and reindeers. Apparently now Grantaire smells of some cheap cologne Enjolras has never noticed in the meetings before, and of alcohol and of something orange-y, and the fact that only Enjolras can hear him clearing his throat gives him a bizarre feeling that has nothing to do with the glass of red wine a tipsy Joly shoved down his throat because “it’s good for your heart!”

“So,” Grantaire’s voice is quiet and hoarse and he feels his warm breath brushing on his already flushed cheek, as the man tilts his curly head closer. “Any New Year’s resolutions? Or should I say…” he smirks sarcastically, “New Year’s revolutions?”

Enjolras lets a small snort at the joke, hardly stirring from his position. “Why? Do you do New Year’s resolutions?”

Grantaire stifles a small chuckle. “But of course. What did you pass me for?”

“You of all people,” murmurs Enjolras.

“Seems out of character?” Grantaire asks with interested amusements.

“No. I mean just because chain bookshops find an opportunity to profit from expensive calendars with the same prints of Monet or cheap images that objectify women's sexuality and just because we upset our sleep schedule for a night, it doesn’t mean that our lives are going to magically change the next morning. Of course I always want to change things, change is what I’m striving for, but resolutions seems like a forced, pretentious concept. Plus, you didn’t strike me as a person to make pompous plans or to believe in changing yourself.”

“I didn’t know you even had a sleep schedule to disturb in first place. Do you _sleep_?” Enjolras rolls his eyes at that until he can swear he can feel his eyeballs hurting. “Besides of course I have New Year’s resolutions! It’s the only thing that’s fun. Laughing at how much you’ve failed in the end of every year!” Enjolras finally turns to look at him and is startled at how close their faces are. “That’s not the spirit. If you try you can always succeed…”

Grantaire groans. “Don’t start with all the potential shit again.”

Enjolras takes the message and stops because it’s New Year’s Eve and he doesn’t mean to be intrusive in other people’s lives. “Anyway,” he asks, immediately failing. “What are you resolutions? Or... wait, you mustn't share them, right?”

“It’s wishes that you don’t share,” tuts Grantaire. “You _can_ share resolutions. What do they even teach you at posh elementary schools?”

“Geometry and tennis, I guess,” Enjolras shrugs his shoulders. “I always sucked at both. Anyway. I bet they’ll all be painfully ironic. Like _Get up from your sofa more, move your laptop to your bed?_ Or _Take up a new habit, start smoking weed?_ ”

“Precisely,” nods Grantaire with a little hum. “ _Be confident in the skin you live in! Wear that and nothing else_ and _Do less laundry and more deodorant._ Also find an artistic style that’s not so fucking pretentious. Oh,” an inexplicable smile appears on his face without quite reaching his blue eyes. “And, you know, stop drinking.”

That really drags Enjolras’ attention. “Are you serious?”

Grantaire smiles mysteriously. “I am wild. No, really, for Jehan’s sake. He and Eponine convinced me to ask some help.”

Enjolras felt oddly touched, as if it was his own advice that Grantaire was taking seriously. “I’m sure you will make it, Grantaire. I believe in you,” he hears himself saying.

There is silence between them, despite the noise from the music and the laughter of their friends. “Thank you,” murmurs Grantaire under his breath but he’s interrupted by a slightly confused Marius, who joins them in the sofa and squeezes himself between them, a plate of chocolate coins on his lap, looking as if his life’s depending on them. The three of them go silent and it’s incredibly awkward as they hear Marius unwrapping the golden metal foil and chewing. The silence is broken when he turns to Grantaire and offers a two euro coin. “Chocolate?” he asks, his mouth half full.

“Thanks Marius,” murmurs Grantaire, taking the coin with a smile. A frantic Cosette then notices him and hurries to ask for his help with something in the kitchen. The two of them remain alone again on the couch.

“Here,” hisses Grantaire, handing Enjolras the coin. “Have it.”

Enjolras raises an eyebrow. “Don’t you want it? I thought you liked chocolate!”

“I do, but I feel more like having a drink tonight.”

“A drink?” Enjolras frowns. “But you said…”

“ _New Year’s_ resolution, Apollo. It’s not the New Year yet,” he winks before standing up, causing Enjolras to roll his eyes with a hint of disappointment inside him. “I want you to keep the chocolate, though,” the dark haired man says with a mockingly pompous expression on his face. “See it as a gesture for good feelings. We haven’t been exactly kind to each other this year.” And with that he walks away, leaving Enjolras terribly frustrated because _who is Grantaire to talk, he was the one who always managed to piss him off!_

Enjolras puts the coin in his pocket, not realizing a slight frown is shadowing his face and the rest of the night goes on smoothly, with no more than a few hiccups. Marius gets a bad stomach ache from the chocolate, Joly gets drunk and emotional, Bahorel gets drunk and ravenous, but other than that it’s peaceful and quite pleasant, until Courfeyrac decides that he has to kiss everyone until New Year’s Eve, and it doesn’t stop to that. Enjolras can do nothing to save himself from his tipsy friends (running around the room making high pitched noises or growling threateningly while giving death glares has stopped working since they turned twenty and met Eponine) so by eleven thirty Enjolras knows what half of his friends’ lips taste like (Cosette’s like strawberries, Bahorel’s like tobacco, Jehan’s like cherries _and his tongue too oh God why_ , as for Combeferre’s it tastes like cocoa and no matter how much wine Enjolras might have had, it feels weird, almost like incest and how can Combeferre still manage to look so serious?) However no kiss means anything, they’re all just laughing and singing and giggling as they wait for the change of the year, all curling, parted lips and clashing teeth and something tightens inside Enjolras, something’s missing but he doesn’t know what, it’s the post-Christmas thing that has him feel empty and heavy at the same time, he always knew that Christmas was a bad idea but suddenly he feels lost, especially when the lights go down and Feuilly shouts “Ten!”

The music stops and everybody starts shuffling around in the dark room, the only lights being from the rooftops outside the windows. The excitement is palpable and could even be diffused in Enjolras if his heart wasn’t already thumping in his chest for a reason he can’t bring himself to explain.

_Nine._

Someone steps on Enjolras’ foot. It’s Bossuet, searching for Musichetta.

_Eight._

Muffled whispers. Tiny snickers. Steps. A moan. _Pontmercy_.

_Seven._

A breath in his ears. Smoke and beer and chocolate. “You’ve got to kiss some fuckin’ body, loser.” _Eponine_. Enjolras shudders in the dark.

_Six._

_Five._

Another breath near his own. He knows that breath. Oranges and whiskey. No chocolate.

He swallows, feeling his Adam’s apple bobbing. That always made him feel uncomfortable when it happened. He’s glad no one can see now. “Hey,” he says.

_Four._

“Hey me?” He knows that voice. Bitterness, sarcasm, and always that slight tone of surprise.

_Three._

_Two._

“Hey you.” His palms are clammy, his stomach tight. What the hell is even happening to him? Everyone around him seems to be holding their breaths.

 _One._ The same voice.

“Happy new year, Apollo.”

And then the lights go on, and it is happening. It’s happening and, worse of all oh, _worse of all_ he knows he did it. Everyone is kissing around him but Enjolras can’t know, he can’t see because his lips are pressed on Grantaire’s and his hands are cupping the man’s scruffy cheeks. Grantaire lets a small, breathless squeak and he tastes so _wonderful,_ so different than the others, it’s not a specific taste that he can define, it’s just _Grantaire_ and Enjolras can only briefly wonder why they haven’t been kissing since _forever,_ until the shocked man relaxes in his hands and parts his lips to allow Enjolras’ tongue to softly trace upon them and he lets a deep, throaty hum as his fingers are thrown through golden curls, grasping softly.

They both know that everyone in the room has frozen and is staring at them, even when Jehan’s waist is in Courfeyrac’s arms and Eponine has her palms shoved in Combeferre’s back-pockets, but thankfully none of their friends starts slow clapping and Enjolras breathlessly breaks the kiss, feeling like no one else’s in the room but Grantaire. He has lost the talent to breathe but he knows, he knows this is a New Year’s kiss like all the others he’s shared with his best friends and he really needs to calm down because Joly might have been right about red wine being good for his heart, but he’ll needs entire barrels for his heart to stay still and not explode out of his chest because really, _what the hell is going on with him?_

Grantaire seems perfectly calm, if not slightly flustered and his dark hair all disheveled. “Eat your chocolate,” is all that he whispers as they break the kiss. “God, you’re so thin.”

“How Joly of you,” murmurs Enjolras sarcastically but, when Grantaire walks away to go to Bossuet, Enjolras digs his hand in the pocket of his pants, reaching for the chocolate coin and slowly unwrapping it.

Wondering _what the hell_ for once more, he realizes that he really does need that chocolate.

*

When Enjolras wakes up on a couch, in a pitch dark room with half of his friends snoring a few hours later, his neck stiff and his mouth dry, with the horrible aftertaste of wine, sleep and saliva, he has no recollection whatsoever of a similar situation when, a few days ago and more precisely on Christmas day, he’d dozed off with his head on Grantaire’s shoulder. Everything seems fuzzy, even the events of that very night, and somewhere in the distance he can hear –and see, through the windows- fireworks. He sits up realizing that his feet have been resting on a drooling Bahorel –around whom a cuddle fort seems to have been made, consisting of Musichetta, Jehan, Feuilly and Courfeyrac- and his head has not been resting on a pillow but on Combeferre’s stomach who sleeps like the dead, a heavily snoring Eponine’s legs hanging from his shoulders. In that unfortunate position all he can manage to do is a little dizzily reach for his pocket, where he finds a metal foil wrapping. His heart doesn’t jump up at the feel of it, his insides instead start coiling with a familiar warmth and the faint taste of chocolate tickles the back of his mouth. He carefully manages to untangle himself from the pile of his friends because he desperately needs to stretch his numb limbs and all he can think of when he manages to shut his mouth again and rub his eyes with the bridges of his hands is _water._

Monsieur Fauchelevent’s house is a labyrinth and it takes a while for him to locate the kitchen, especially in the dark, inevitably stumbling on an unidentified piece of furniture or two. Feuilly and Cosette grumble some incoherent curses that would make her father flinch at the sound of but fall back to sleep and he manages to reach the dark kitchen, relatively unharmed.

Grantaire is there, snoring slightly with his head fallen on the wooden table, a bucket of ice cream in front of him slowly melting. The kitchen is frozen cold and Enjolras shudders only at the sight of it. Instinctively, he takes off his pea coat in which he’d fallen asleep himself, and carefully wraps it around the sleeping man’s shoulders. He quickly steps back startled and still dopey from sleep when Grantaire stirs. “Mmwhat?” he murmurs sleepily.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” whispers Enjolras. “It’s just cold in here.”

“The cold never bothered me anyway,” Grantaire says rather dramatically, his blue eyes glowing as he’s immediately thrown awake, raising his head to face Enjolras. “’was making sum’ milkshake. Want any?”

Enjolras heads to the sink to pour some water, thankful for the darkness of the kitchen hiding his smile. “Ice cream’s melting though.”

“Some things are worth melting for,” he hears Grantaire muttering from behind and it makes no sense at all, not that anything else that happened or was said that night made any more sense.

He takes a sip from his water as he hears Grantaire shuffling behind him. The man works his way with the milkshakes in the dark and Enjolras just stands there, his back resting at the sink because he really sucks at those things and he couldn’t help if he wanted to. Grantaire’s movements are deft and quick, careful not to wake the others, even when drunk and still half-asleep. The only light’s coming from the fireworks and moonlight from outside the kitchen window, and the way it illuminates the drunk man’s harsh features is quite captivating.

“I really do believe you can do it, you know,” he blurts out before he’s able to control his words. “The drinking thing.”

“Thank you, Apollo. Your faith in people may deceive you,” mutters Grantaire, avoiding his gaze and shuffling around the kitchen. “Where the fuck do they keep their fricking mugs?” he says hoarsely looking in the cupboards over the sink and just out of nowhere they end up in each other’s space, trying to walk their way out of it but it’s awkward and at the same time it isn’t. “Let me just…” murmurs Enjolras, feeling his cheeks burning.

“Yeah, move your skinny ass a bit if you want this damn milkshake,” hums Grantaire and they have this little weird _awkward_ dance by the sink until the man manages to lay his hands upon the Frosty the snowman identical mugs. He raises his eyes and Enjolras’ gaze meets them, even in the dark. “You didn’t tell me if you have any resolutions,” Grantaire eventually breathes, and it’s warm on Enjolras’ face.

“I told you,” Enjolras lies back against the sink. “I don’t. I only had those from the other kind. The one you don’t share with people.”

Grantaire raises an eyebrow before placing a straw in his glass and taking a sip from his chocolate milkshake. “You mean wishes?”

There is a pause as Enjolras thankfully accepts his mug and very own, personal red straw and nods curtly. “I mean wishes,” he replies seriously, correcting himself. “One.”

“And?” Grantaire’s voice is low and hoarse. “Is it likely to come true?”

Silence falls again. Someone lets a whimper from the other room, probably Marius or Joly and Eponine replies with a snore. “Oh,” Enjolras takes a breath, “it is very likely indeed.”

They’re both standing against the sink, a small smile flickering on Grantaire’s usually dark face and Enjolras feels his heart leaping in his chest. “I have one wish too,” Grantaire murmurs. “From the kind that you can share, so maybe you can call it a resolution.”

“What wish?” Enjolras asks hoarsely.

“I wish I could help your wish come true.”

Enjolras swallows. Their eyes meet. They’re blue and the moon suits them well. “Then kiss me again,” he says. “Just kiss me...”

Grantaire doesn’t blink, he only stands there dumbstruck and his eyes are _so blue._

“Happy calendar consuming capitalistic celebration, Apollo,” he breathes slowly a cold breath of milkshake, leaning closer, and then _closer-_

The sink is cold through the fabric against Enjolras’ waist. Grantaire’s fingers are even frozen on the nape of his neck.

It comes true.


End file.
